RIDDOR: What Employers Must Report and What It Means for Your Claim

RIDDOR is the law that requires employers to report certain workplace accidents, injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences to the Health and Safety Executive. If you have been injured at work and your employer should have submitted a RIDDOR report but did not, this does not stop you claiming compensation, but it can be important evidence of how your employer handled workplace safety.

What Is RIDDOR?

RIDDOR stands for the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. It is made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and places a legal duty on employers, the self-employed, and people in control of work premises, referred to as the “responsible person”, to notify the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) when certain serious incidents occur.

The purpose of RIDDOR is regulatory, not compensatory. It exists so the HSE can identify patterns of risk, target inspections, and hold organisations to account for failures in workplace safety. It is not, in itself, a compensation scheme, and submitting a RIDDOR report does not automatically mean your employer has accepted legal liability for your injury. That said, RIDDOR reports and the records behind them are often valuable evidence in a personal injury claim, because they capture contemporaneous detail about what happened, when, and how your employer responded.

What Must Be Reported Under RIDDOR?

Not every workplace accident is RIDDOR reportable. The regulations set out specific categories of incident that trigger a legal duty to report.

Deaths
Any death of a worker or member of the public that results from a work-related accident must be reported. This includes deaths occurring within one year of the accident. Suicides and deaths from unrelated natural causes are excluded, even if they happen on site.

Specified injuries to workers
These are the more serious injury types listed in the regulations, including:

• Fractures, other than to fingers, thumbs or toes
• Amputations
• Permanent loss of sight or reduction in sight
• Crush injuries to the head or torso causing damage to the brain or internal organs
• Serious burns covering a significant proportion of the body, or affecting the eyes, respiratory system or other vital organs
• Scalping requiring hospital treatment
• Loss of consciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia
• Any other injury arising from working in an enclosed space that leads to hypothermia, heat-induced illness, or requires resuscitation or hospital admission for more than 24 hours

Over-seven-day incapacitation
Where a worker is unable to carry out their normal duties for more than seven consecutive days as a result of a workplace accident, not counting the day of the accident but including weekends and rest days, this must be reported. This is distinct from the three-day threshold, which only requires the incident to be recorded in the workplace accident book rather than reported to the HSE.

Injuries to non-workers
If a member of the public, customer, or visitor is injured on your premises and is taken directly to hospital for treatment, this is reportable. Examinations or diagnostic tests alone do not meet this threshold.

Occupational diseases
Certain work-related illnesses must be reported once a doctor formally diagnoses them and confirms the link to work, including conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational asthma, and certain cancers linked to specific workplace exposures.

Dangerous occurrences
These are near-misses with the potential to cause serious harm, even where no one was actually injured. Examples include the collapse of scaffolding, the failure of load-bearing equipment, or an unintended explosion or fire that stops work for more than 24 hours.

Reporting Timescales

RIDDOR sets strict timescales that vary depending on the type of incident:

1. Deaths, specified injuries, and dangerous occurrences must be notified to the HSE without delay, typically via the online reporting system, followed by a full written report within 10 days.
2. Over-seven-day incapacitation injuries must be reported within 15 days of the accident.
3. Occupational diseases must be reported as soon as the responsible person receives a formal diagnosis linking the condition to work.

Failure to report within these timescales is a criminal offence, separate from and in addition to any civil liability the employer may have towards an injured worker.

Who Is Responsible for Reporting?

The duty to report under RIDDOR falls on the “responsible person”, which in practice usually means:

• The employer, in respect of their own employees
• A self-employed person, in respect of themselves or their own work activity
• A person in control of work premises, such as a landlord, site manager, or main contractor, where the incident involves someone not directly employed by them

It is worth noting that RIDDOR reporting obligations sit alongside, not instead of, the general duty on every employer under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of employees. A RIDDOR report is a downstream consequence of an incident. The underlying legal question in any compensation claim is whether the employer breached that broader duty of care in the first place.

Does a RIDDOR Report Prove My Employer Was Negligent?

No, and it is important to be realistic about this. A RIDDOR report is a record that a reportable incident occurred. It is not an admission of fault, and the HSE receiving a report does not mean liability has been established. Equally, the absence of a RIDDOR report does not mean you have no claim. Many valid personal injury and public liability claims involve incidents that were never reported, either because the employer wrongly judged the injury did not meet the threshold, or because they failed to comply with their reporting duty altogether.

Where relevant, a RIDDOR report or the record behind it can still support a claim in several ways:

• It provides a contemporaneous account of the date, location and circumstances of the accident
• It can corroborate the severity of the injury, particularly for specified injuries or over-seven-day absences
• A pattern of RIDDOR reports for the same hazard, or an employer’s failure to report at all, can point to wider failings in how safety was managed
• It can help identify whether other incidents involving the same equipment, process or premises have occurred previously

What to Do Next If You Have Been Injured at Work

If you have been injured at work, or by an unsafe condition on premises you were visiting, the steps you take early on can make a meaningful difference to your claim.

1. Report the accident to your employer or the person in control of the premises, and ensure it is logged in the accident book
2. Seek appropriate medical treatment and keep a record of your diagnosis and any ongoing symptoms
3. Note down what happened as soon as possible, including the date, time, location and any witnesses
4. Take photographs of the hazard, equipment, or condition that caused your injury, if it is safe to do so
5. Ask whether the incident has been reported to the HSE under RIDDOR, and request a copy of any accident book entry
6. Speak to a specialist solicitor to assess whether your employer, or another party responsible for the premises, breached their duty of care

At Satchell Moran Solicitors, our specialist accident at work and public liability team investigates the full picture behind a workplace injury, including whether RIDDOR reporting obligations were met and what that reveals about how seriously safety was being taken. We act on a no win, no fee basis, and hold dual Lexcel accreditation reflecting the standard of process we apply to every claim we handle.

If you have been injured at work or on premises controlled by someone else, get in touch with Satchell Moran Solicitors for a free, no obligation discussion about whether you have grounds to claim.